


Countdown (Four Glasses)

by WinryWeiss



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Acceptance, Age Regression/De-Aging, Ambiguous Relationships, Bittersweet, Character Death, Character Study, Continuity What Continuity, Curses, Ignoring the unsuitable continuity since this franchise does so all the time!, Immortality, I’ve actually managed to creep myself out a little TBH, Jealousy, Just WHAT is a Lupin?, Loss, Loyalty, M/M, Negative Continuity, Or Is It?, Partnership, Past Child Abuse, Possessiveness, Reincarnation, Trust, and the adventure continues, makeshift family, might be interpreted as grooming, seriously thought that was not my intention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25485460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinryWeiss/pseuds/WinryWeiss
Summary: Raise the glass for those who are no longer with us. First for the one you never met. Second for the one who picked you up. Third for the one you loved more than own life.And Fourth for the one who is to come.Jigen Daisuke never met the fabled Arséne Lupin in person. But he was recruited by Lupin the Second. He fell in love with Lupin the Third. And now he ended up with an heir of the title to raise.Except… those men playing vital roles in his life are somehow one being.
Relationships: Arsène Lupin II & Jigen Daisuke, Arsène Lupin III/Mine Fujiko (mentioned), Jigen Daisuke/Arsène Lupin III
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Countdown (Four Glasses)

Daisuke read the stories about the elusive gentleman thief to his baby sister, fully aware that she did not yet understand the meaning behind the words, that she was just captivated by his voice. He read those stories aloud, inventing words he couldn’t yet pronounce properly. Not too loud to draw attention to themselves, but loud enough to overcome the raised voices of their parents, the cries of pain and despair and slaps of violence, the harrowing wailing of police sirens outside.

He could not help but wonder about the man hiding beneath the façade of a debauched French aristocrat. He wondered how could the man portrayed in those stories spawned such a cold-hearted monster-of-a-man that had been making a name for himself, leaving in his wake trembling gangsters and policemen alike, systematically building a criminal empire.

He forewent those stories as he grew to his teens, preoccupied with inventing ways to keep his sister safe and carrying out questionable jobs with high risk and low pay to lessen his father’s debts.

But Daisuke remembered his childhood musing with crystal-clear clarity the moment he met the Second.

His eyes were cold beyond cruel and a sneer ruled over his features. His voice was low and dangerous, laced with an almost imperceptible bitter undertone. “I like your guts, _little one_.” He clutched the gun, seemingly unheeding of his own finger squashed in the cock, preventing the battered pistol from shooting.

Daisuke attempted to wrench the gun from his grasp.

“Really _charming_ ,” his eyes caught the boy in the same way a spider would catch a fly in his net. The nasal French accent of the calculating voice sent shivers down Daisuke’s spine. But despite the dread the fabled criminal aroused in him, he was determined to not to plead for life, not to beg nor cry. He ought to go down like a man, silent and disapproving, like his father.

“How about we make a deal, hm?”

The scoff of disagreement died on Daisuke’s tongue with the man’s next words.

“Work for me and your lovely little sister would not need to pay your father’s debts with her body.”

It was a deal with a devil, the very Devil himself, but Jigen Daisuke did not have anything but his soul to bargain with.

“And what would you have me do?” He let the man take away the gun, feeling oddly vulnerable, almost naked without it.

“First of all,” Lupin the Second scorned at the battered pistol, “you’d need proper equipment, _Daisuke_.”

Lupin the Second was feared all around the underground and even far outside.

By the time he picked Daisuke up, he already had an empire unlike any other, stretching across all continents, seizing several states: from Daisuke’s native USA to his ancestral Japan, with the continental France as the heart, the base of all operations. No one dared to raise the slightest voice of protest against bringing in a rag-tag boy. No one was brave enough to go against the will of the Second.

Slowly, he started to mould Daisuke into a fine man. He showed him the proper etiquette, revealed various bits and pieces of useful information. He taught him how to pick a lock or a pocket, how to disappear in the crowd and how to disguise himself by merely changing accessories.

He taught him French, with patience defying his restrained demeanour, and he himself learned Japanese from Daisuke.

Despite the gossips unrelenting like the taste of cheap wine, Lupin never laid a finger on him, never dragged him to his bed to have his way with him. Even though Daisuke soon lost count of the occasions those snake-cold eyes trailed after him like a ravenous beast stalking a prey.

“Marvelling the view?” Daisuke asked once, standing next to the French window overseeing the cultivated garden of the family mansion. The setting sun painted everything in blood red. He hesitated with one hand on the curtains, suddenly reluctant to draw them close.

“Quite so,” Lupin smirked. “Darker colours really befits you, _Daisuke_.”

That night Daisuke was dead certain that Lupin would come to his bedroom. He expected to be spread open and claimed without mercy, but the morning came and everything remained the same.

Instead, the Second prompted him to hone his shooting skills, to master them to the point on the verge of physical possibilities. Adjusting his posture at first, sometimes with a firm grip, sometimes with feather-light touches, offering tips on how to calculate the trajectory despite the wind, how to compensate for the distance. Allowing a soft smile to appear whenever Daisuke hit the target at the first try. Observing the practice of his personally picked young bodyguard for hours, sitting in an overstuffed armchair that was carried to the shooting range for this sole purpose, without protecting his ears, without a movement. Sometimes it seemed even without breathing.

He gave Daisuke a gun, brand-new, sturdy and reliable magnum. He gave him clean clothes that were his only from the very beginning, not hands-me-down that barely held together. He paid him enough money to send his sister to a private school, away from the gloom life they had, away from the dangers of drugs and prostitution.

Lupin gave Daisuke never a single reason to doubt him and all the reasons to fear ever thinking about betraying him.

Lupin gave Jigen purpose.

“You should go,” Lupin said when his empire was crumbling to ruins, when his underlings betrayed him, out of fear, out of greed. “You served me well.”

But Jigen stood unmoving next to him, a silent echo of all those times he posed as his bodyguard. Eyes hidden underneath a fedora, (a parting gift from his sister before she married away) shadows from the flames engulfing the family mansion dancing across his face. After a while he lit himself a cigarette, not bothering with a lighter, using the blazing inferno instead. He drew on it deeply, letting the taste linger in his mouth before breathing out the smoke. “We have a deal, remember?”

Lupin laughed.

For the first time Jigen known him Lupin laughed. Laughed long and hearty and some of the bitterness and hurt he bore like a stigma left his soul with the laugh.

“In that case, I have a final order for you, _Daisuke_.” He took Jigen’s cigarette and puffed, contemplating the taste before deciding that he likes it. “There is a small house in the countryside just out of Lyon. I took you there once.” He waited for a heartbeat for the confirmation that Jigen remember that particular hideout. “Go there and wait. The era of the Second is over, now will be the time of the Third.”

“ _Third?_ You–”

“See to him. See that he does better than me. Now, get lost.”

With a curt nod Jigen did as he was ordered.

Later on, he realised that was the last time anyone ever saw Lupin the Second.

The beard Jigen decided to grow still pricked and scratched, the new Lupin by his side still seemed somewhat unsettled in his skin, in his role.

The Third was _different_. Not only by 180 degrees, but more likely turned upside down and inside out for a good measure as well. He paid no attention to the broken empire, letting the remnants rot away, never hunting those who betrayed his predecessor. Slowly but surely he defined himself by doing things differently than the Second, even though it proved to be a lot harder more often than not. He seemed content to just chase after some treasure or another.

Contend just to _live_.

The Third was uncontrollable like a force of nature. He was insane and incorrigible, petty and proud, cunning and capricious, anything but serious, and yet… beneath his façade Jigen could from time to time catch a glimpse of the calculating coldness that reminded him of the Second so much it stole his breath and stalled his heart from beating. But those glimpses were few and far between, and soon he got accustomed to a completely different lifestyle.

He learned to operate every vehicle in existence on land, sea, air and even in outer space. He got accustomed to way-too-quickly changing technology, fumbling his way through the usage of newest devices, half-assembled stolen patents or gadgets Lupin build from the scratch. He spent a frustrating time trying to learn Italian, never getting beyond the basics, since he kept forgetting his textbooks in hideouts abandoned in haste, in cars used during stakeouts, or even in police cells. He managed to improve his lockpicking skills, ‘cause Lupin had a vexing tendency to get himself caught and then wait for Jigen to come to the rescue. He came to loathe menthol cigarettes due to particular back-stabbing woman, but became fond of the taste of kiseru, courtesy of certain prissy samurai.

And before he realised, Jigen had a family to care about once again.

Goemon was easy to deal with.

And easier to tease.

Peculiar personality wrapped in hakama and haori. Disciplined, knowledgeable of various ways of the warriors of the past, preferring traditions to the point of seeming obsolete, as if he tumbled out of some period drama. Which was oddly charming. Somehow he remained almost naively trustful, despite all he underwent, despite his short-lived career as an assassin, despite his acquaintance with Lupin and Jigen.

Fujiko… _well…_

Jigen had to accept her. He had to accept her whining and double-crossing, because her methods, as much as he scorned them, proved fruitful. Accept the stench of her sickly sweet perfume that clung to Lupin’s skin long after she left, after she used him to her satisfaction. But he adorned the time she was not around, the time he had Lupin to himself. He let the Third salivate over her like a lovesick puppy, contend in the knowledge that when she would have no purpose for him, she would kick him away and Lupin would crawl back to _him_ , seeking comfort.

Or perhaps it was the other way around.

Because even though Jigen tried to walk away on countless opportunities, he caught himself time and time again to be running back, to repay the cat-like grin with own goofy smile, to grab the lanky hand dressed in a colourful jacket, unable to let go.

The first time they shared a bed, when he offered the Third his body, (Jigen’s heart he already owned) with the pale moon high in the sky above them, and mingling breath and skinny hips and hairy legs and nimble fingers, Jigen allowed himself to disregard all those lonely nights he spent waiting for the Devil of a man who stole his soul. Lupin’s warmth still lingering deep inside him when he wound around Jigen like a well-feed snake and hissed: “ _Daisuke._ ” into Jigen’s ear in exactly the same way the Second used to whisper after his protégé did something pleasing. Feeling those predator’s eyes bore deep into the core of his soul, Jigen lazily lit a cigarette. He offered it to Lupin before snuggling into his embrace, relishing in the possessiveness and not bothering with numbers or titles or names anymore.

It went on and on and on, chasing the treasure, chasing the thrill, defying logic, defying death.

But nothing could continue for eternity.

It should have been him, Jigen thought.

It should have been him, the one caught up in the explosion.

It should have been Lupin who was fished unceremoniously from the soul-cold river, not the other way around.

Not those deceptively strong arms which pushed him, not those insanely long legs which tripped him into the safety of the river out of the building as it collapsed, but the other way around.

Not Lupin, but _him_.

He shook his head, trying to cease the annoying ringing in his ears, trying to get the water away from his hair and his eyes. But the salty droplets clung to his eyelashes and burned beneath his eyelids as he cried his voice hoarse, calling and calling the name of his most beloved person, futilely hoping for an answer. He strained against the policemen who attempted to hold him away from the water, strained against Zenigata who wrestled him into a cocoon of a dry, warm blanket, until all his strength left him and he went limp in Pops’ arms, like a marionette with cut strings.

They were unable to find the body, but they found the scorched jacket, the bright colour no longer distinguishable.

They found Jigen’s hat as well, down the stream, as the flow attempted to carry it away into oblivion.

When Zenigata came to return it he didn’t move, propped against the cell wall, curled into himself with heavy head resting on arms folded over his legs. The inspector laid the hat gently on the bench next to him, turning to leave.

“Pops,” his voice scratched and his heart hurt, “mind sharing a smoke?”

Zenigata obliged without the slightest hesitation. “Look, I know him,” he lit a stale cigarette, the last from his packet. “ _You_ know him. He’ll waltz right back once it would be convenient for him.” As Jigen didn’t react, he prompted: “Right?”

Jigen observed the smoke dissipating into the light of the uncaring pale moon. “No number is infinite. Go home, Pops. Rest, now that you can.”

So the inspector left, deeply unsettled.

That night a man who dedicated his life to chasing after an elusive thief and his gang had a fitful slumber, waking with every rustle of the wind and every creak of the floor, expecting, _praying for_ , certain cheeky rascal to make a fool out of him once again.

That night ominous shadows crept across the blade of the one and only steel-cutting sword, devouring it fully for a short amount of time and then disappeared all at once, leaving behind unblemished shine, to the utter confusion of the owner.

That night a multi-millionaire was stood on a date in Paris, the woman he was supposed to meet with never showing her face, as the world announced the obituary of a certain infamous master thief. She left the town in hurry, riding her motorcycle at breakneck speed, hoping against all hope that it’s yet another of his far-fetched schemes.

That night a shadow of a man hiding beneath beard and fedora fled from the police cell without anybody noticing, a feat of a genuine phantom thief. Then he walked leisurely, albeit a little listlessly, to the nearest hideout his gang of a family had been using, buying several bottles of the strongest alcohol he came across.

That night Jigen Daisuke dreamed of should-have-beens and could-have-beens, of yellow Fiat and golden Mercedes-Benz SSK, of jackets in all colours of the rainbow, of the aroma of Gitanes and French cologne, of nimble fingers, of the pale moon high above, of flames engulfing an old family mansion at the outskirt of Paris, of snake-cold eyes and cat-like grin.

Jigen woke up, suddenly alert and aware of another presence in the room. Out of instinct he assumed a defensive position, magnum raised, empty bottles falling from the couch and rolling loudly away in all directions.

He could feel the reality around him settling, he practically heard the moan of the universe reassessing itself.

A piercing gaze from the darkness raised the fine hair on his neck, he sensed more than saw, in the soft breeze that moved the curtains, an outline of a being.

“Show yourself,” Jigen ordered.

And the newcomer obeyed.

This time around he was no older than 12. Mismatched clothes, no doubt stolen, hung on his lanky body. The soft moonglow made him appear ethereal.

Jigen never saw him before. And yet he immediately recognised him.

“ _Jigen Daisuke?_ ” It was beyond mere question, it was a confirmation of deeply ingrained knowledge, a reassurance.

“You bet.” Jigen hid his gun back to the holster. “Took you long enough, _Fourth_.”

The being smiled. It might have been the first time Jigen saw this particular smile. But he foresaw it in a manic cat-like grin of the man who regularly turned the impossible odds in his favour. And even before in a cruel sneer of the man who hated his very own existence. It held the echo of a never seen smile of the man who went against the conventions of his time.

Jigen dropped to his knees and took the hand of the heir, delivering a kiss to those long, nimble fingers.

He had a shitload of things to do: a birth-certificate to forge, clothes to buy, hideouts to refurbish, notices to send and a funeral to arrange, lies to invent for mourning companions.

But _his partner_ was here, alive and brand new.

And Jigen can’t wait how Lupin would turn out to be for the fourth time around.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a story in this fandom ever since I’ve discovered it all those _years_ ago. (Roughly a decade back now. Gosh, this makes me feel sooo old.) But I just didn’t have the right idea. And suddenly, while re-reading the original manga, this idea came to me, utterly out of the blue, crashing down like a ton of bricks.
> 
> It is not my usual headcanon for those thieving dorks, _**faaar** from it_, and it came out a tad more… _unsettling_ than I intended, but…  
> I really like how it turned out in the end.  
> And I wholeheartedly hope you enjoyed reading it.


End file.
